41st EVA Platform Commissions

EVA International is pleased to announce the selected artists for the Platform Commissions programme of the 41st EVA International—Ireland’s Biennial of Contemporary Art: Éireann and I (Joselle Ntumba and Beulah Ezeugo), Colm Keady-Tabbal, Olivia Normile, Bridget O’Gorman, and Lyónn Wolf.

The selected artists will work with EVA International to develop projects that will be presented as part of the biennial programme, taking place from Autumn 2025 across Limerick city. Proposals were selected by Iarlaith Ní Fheorais and Roy Claire Potter, following an open call process that invited artists to respond to ideas and definitions of access.

Iarlaith Ní Fheorais and Roy Claire Potter remarked on the selection process:

“I was deeply impressed by the breadth of vision in which access was considered and how it could be applied through artistic and participatory means, folding in broad concerns, geographies, and affinities.” (Iarlaith Ní Fheorais)

“I was encouraged and impressed by the readiness of all the applicants who were willing to pursue thought and practice that expands from definitions of access. A great number of artists in Ireland are socially and politically driven toward not only inclusion, but hybrid methodologies for high impact art making.” (Roy Claire Potter)

EVA International Director, Matt Packer, stated: “The Platform Commissions initiative continues to provide a unique opportunity for artists based in Ireland to develop new and uniquely ambitious works, within the supportive and artist-focussed environment of EVA. We look forward to working with all of the selected artists over the next months, ahead of the 41st EVA International in 2025.”

Artist Biographies:
Éireann and I is a community archive for Black migrants in Ireland. It is also a migrant memory project, where events and discussions on heritage, memory work, and agency within the public record are hosted. As a creative platform, the project aims to connect artists with migrant communities through participatory workshops, resulting in publications and public installations. It is co-developed by curator and researcher Beulah Ezeugo and cultural worker Joselle Ntumba. Recent work includes the publication Dreaming Still, commissioned by The Douglas Hyde (2024); exhibitions at Galway Arts Centre (2022) and The Douglas Hyde (2022); and a curatorial residency at the Museum of Everyone (2023).

Colm Keady-Tabbal (they/them) is an Irish-Lebanese artist currently based in New York. Their practice investigates epistemologies of sound, place and memory and their relationship to systems and architectures of control. Operating through installations, performance, moving image and writing their work addresses the legacies of applied modernism and behaviourism, often appropriating the forms and language of existing media and infrastructure. Their work has been exhibited and performed at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Fridman Gallery, Lenfest Centre for the Arts, IRCAM Festival, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Ormston House, and Cork Centre for Architectural Education. They received their BA in Fine Art from the NCAD, Dublin and an MFA from Columbia University School of the Arts.

Olivia Normile is a visual artist working across installation, drawing, animation and film. Her practice engages with fictional storytelling by considering human to non-human relationships through opportunistic and structured moments. Recent residencies and awards include: Digital Media Practice Award (2024), Firestation Artists’ Studios Dublin, Arts Council Agility Award (2022), (2021), Dublin City Council St. Patrick’s Lodge Residency (2019), Emerging Irish Artist Award, Burren College of Art (2018), Ormond Art Studios Graduate Award (2018). Exhibitions include: Dog-Eared Paradise, screen service (2023), Matters of Table, Periphery Space, Gorey School of Art (2023), Remembering The Future, VISUAL (2023), Deliverables, Pallas Projects/Studios Artist Initiated Projects (2022).

Bridget O’Gorman is an artist and writer based in Tipperary. Bridget works with sculpture, live events, text and video, and is also a portfolio artist with field:arts —working with Iarlaith Ni Fheorais recently they developed a major commission as part of TULCA 2023 supported by Arts & Disability Ireland. Exhibitions include: Speech Sounds, VISUAL (2022), Health Club, Hyde Park Arts Centre (2019), Lucians Neighbours, IMMA (2018).  Public projects include: Supernatural Bread, Project Arts Centre (2022), On Slowness, Auto Italia (2021), The Legacy of Gesture, FACT & DADA Fest (2019).

Lyónn Wolf is a trans, working class, visual artist, educator and writer. Rooted in Ireland with a history of community organising, and working internationally, they make long term projects intentionally shaped by economic necessity. They engage forms of recycling, thrift and ephemera, resulting in soft modularity, wild archiving and performative intervention, posing questions about value, accumulation and authorship. They see a cultural centring of thrift as part of a tradition of queer-working class vernacular and ethics, promiscuous and adept at working within limitations. Lyónn has developed a trilogy of works since 2014 dealing with queer economies and spatial politics: The Re-appropriation of Sensuality, Sex in Public & Domestic Optimism. Exhibitions include: The Project Arts Centre Dublin, The Grazer Kunstverein, Steirischer Herbst Festival Graz, NCAD Gallery Dublin, Dundee Contemporary Arts, nGbK Berlin, Survival Kit Riga & De Appel Amsterdam.